China puts zero-Covid behind it with ‘new phase’ of living with the virus

Name: Trace, test, lock down, repeat: Three years under China’s zero-Covid strategy
Uploaded: 2022-12-17T12:00:12.000Z
Duration: 11 min 33 s
Description: Trace, test, lock down, repeat: Three years under China’s zero-Covid strategy

Top economic policy conference says the focus now is to protect the elderly and vulnerable from severe illness

‘The virus has become weaker and we have become stronger,’ state news agency says

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China has entered a new phase of preventing serious illness, according to authorities. Photo: AP

Josephine Ma

Published: 8:00pm, 17 Dec 2022Updated: 6:56am, 7 Jan 2023

After three years of zero-Covid, China’s coronavirus response has entered a new phase, with the focus now on treatment and prevention of severe disease, according to the country’s top economic policymakers.

The declaration on Friday night from the Central Economic Work Conference, the most important annual meeting of its kind, comes after a series of government announcements last week that signalled China was heading for the exit from its controversial approach to containing the virus.

It was tacit acknowledgement that the country’s shift to living with the virus was in full swing.

State news agency Xinhua also summed up what it said were the strategy’s successes and China’s improved ability to cope with the virus.

“The virus has become weaker and we have become stronger,” it said on Saturday.

11:33

Trace, test, lock down, repeat: Three years under China’s zero-Covid strategy

The declaration from the work conference, which took place on Thursday and Friday, said the country had new priorities in the “new phases of Covid prevention and control”.

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